1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conferencing system, a terminal apparatus, a communication method and a storage medium.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, intense interest has been shown in work toward a desktop conferencing system using computers such as personal computers. Such a desktop conferencing system allows a plurality of terminals remote from one another to share the same application software or to commonly utilize an electronic blackboard by exchanging data to be used in respective personal computers together with video images and audio information.
In the desktop conferencing system, developments have been made to a video telephone for imitating existing identification of participants attaining an actual conference where the participants are gathered in a conference room, and to an image plane (image) shared device for imitating a discussion held on a white board.
In such a conventional image plane shared device, since all the participants always refer to the same image plane, when one of the participants takes a memo, e.g., he or she draws something on the image plane such as in an electronic blackboard, all the participants must share the drawing without fail. At an actual conference, however, sharing the same memo or drawing cannot take place. The present inventors assume that, when documents are distributed among the participants in the actual conference, the participants take the following actions:
(1) each participant refers to any of the documents freely and independently of the other participants, PA1 (2) each participant makes memos personally in the document, and PA1 (3) a document distributor points out a specific page and a specific point of the document to the participants for explaining the document so that each participant can refer to the document according to the explanation.
It is therefore required to provide an apparatus for imitating distribution and explanation of conference documents in an actual conference or supporting such functions in a desktop video conferencing system so that a conference held in the desktop conferencing system can be made to approximate the actual conference.